Retired Stock, but I love it

Today I was cleaning out my craft area trying to make room for the new goodies from the latest Stampin' Up! Annual Catalogue, and came across all sorts of things that had sort of been pushed to the back of the cupboard. Didnt realise I had so much Not Quite Navy Cardstock and Baja Breeze, and more than one packet of Twitterpad I thought "Blow it, I am going to play!" I decided to make a Z Fold card, havent made one of them for ages. Dont know why I dont make more of them they are so quick and easy and they look lovely too. I used the Not Quite Navy for my card base and for the inside and also the outside flap. I layered it with the DSP and Baja Breeze. Then for the front panel I used Not Quite Navy, Baja Breeze and Whisper White. For the inside panel I made it the same size as the one on the front so that when it was closed the top panel would sit over the bottom one. My intention was to use my new Flower Shop Stamp set to decorate the front when I glanced across my desk and what did I see but a "Pretties Kit" tin. Now these have been retired for at least a couple of years, and I think I have used one or two pearls and thats about it :(
This tin has been sitting there for quite some time, and I was going to put it in a garage sale that I have been contemplating having. I grabbed three of the flowers in different sizes and coloured them with Baja Breeze Ink Refill and water. Old olive and the Bird Builder punch took care of the leaves and basic Rhinestone in the centre of the flower. Sentiment stamped with Well Scripted stamp set in Not Quite Navy. I think this is a really pretty card, and I am so glad that I got to have a play. Now its back to cleaning the craft cupboard to get ready for the delivery I am expecting this week.....much excitement, cant wait. Till then, happy stamping.

Special Request

A little while ago I was asked to make a birthday card for a young man’s mum who lives in Sweden. He gave me a piece of patterned paper and asked that I use this on the card because it had all his mum’s favourite colours in it, and also it had to have flowers. When I looked at it I saw Tempting Turquoise, Brushed Gold, and Bashful Blue.  I decided to use the Elements of Style stamp set and also the Four Frames. I made the card an A5 size, using a base of Bashful Blue, then matted it with Brushed Gold and Bashful Blue again. I stamped the image on Whisper White with Stazon because I was using my Aqua Painter to colour the image. The colours I used were Tempting Turquoise, Bashful Blue, Marina Mist and even a touch of Baja Breeze, Old Olive was used for the leaves and the stems. The Four Frames stamp I used and the sentiment from Sincere Salutations were all stamped using Stazon Ink as was the greeting on the inside of the card and the small portions of the main stamp. I punched the front sentiment out using the Decorative Label Punch, then punched it out again but this time in the Bushed Gold and layered them together. To finish the card off I used a strip of the paper that I was given to use and punched a decorative edge using the Eyelette Border Punch, then repeated the same but this time using Bashful Blue cardstock.  He loved the card, and so did his mum, and I thought it turned out pretty well too.

Spongeing and watercolour paper

The other day I made this lovely card of which I was inspried by Beverly Pollen. Beverly lives on the Coast in the USA and quite a bit of her work comes about from inspiration she gets from her surroundings. Last week was no different, she came up with a beautiful creation using sponging and  the effects were beautiful. I 'cased' her card to a degree, but then added my own twist to it and this is the result. It was so quick and easy to do I couldnt believe how quick. I added the boat and the sun and clouds to my card just to add a bit of interest. Hope you like it as much as I do, Please let me know what you think. Bye for now

Natures Nest and Faux Mother of Pearl

April is Autism Awareness Month, and the colour for Autism is Blue and funnily enough Mitchell our grandson chose the cardstock for the card base.After having a play with the Faux Pearl Technique yesterday I decided to try a more 'male-ish' type of card using the same technique! This time I used Pacific Point Cardstock, swiped it over with my Classic Stampin Ink Pad of the same colour, then topped that with a strip of Sahara Sand that had been run through the Big Shot using the Tatsteful Trims die. I used Whisper White card stock for my technique and sponged it with the Champagne Mist Shimmer Paint and when that dried I sponged again all over using the Sahara Sand Classic Ink Pad. A quick rub with a tissue removed the excess from the Shimmer Paint and it was ready to stamp. Mitchell chose the turle from Natures Nest and stamped him with Stazon Brown. I matted the Whisper White onto Baja Breeze abd then onto Soft Suede just to lift it a little. You can see in this photo the 'pearl' effect. This was such an easy little card to make and voila! I have made yet another masculine card!  I really like the way this turned out, what do you think, I would love to know. Bye for now

Mini Magazine Holder and Cards

Over the next few days I will be posting the cards that were made along with this darling Mini Magazine Holder. I gathered the inspiration for mine from  Wendy Hawkinson The ladies had a lot of fun making their cards and the holder and well before they left they had already planned who they were going to make more of these for and for what occasion! I used my newest favourite colour for the holder and that is Very Vanilla. I wrapped a narrow strip of the Elegant Soiree designer paper around the bottom and then tied a vanilla satin bow. This box has so many possibilities. I think the So Swirly Jumbo Wheel could be used to great effect and also the the Very Vintage Jumbo Wheel would look brilliant too. Once the holder was made we went on to make 5 cards and envelopes to match. I look forward to you visiting tomorrow to see the first of the cards that were made, I wuld love to know what you think of them, Bye for now

Sail Away

Hi Stampers!

I thought tonight I would share a quick card that I made while watching the cricket with my husband (not). The baja breeze base had been sitting on my work table for a few days and has been moved from this spot to that. I was mounting the Sail Away stamp and thought I would use it with what I had on the table. I coloured the yacht with Watercolour Pencils and then used my Blender Pen to colour. I thought that I would distress the edges and this was very hard to do, because the whole time my mind is screaming at me to "STOP", it isnt straight or structured. I backed it with Baja Breeze and mounted it on dimensionals. I also matted the baja breeze on some Whisper White Cardstock that I had run the Very Vintage Wheel over and then embossed using the square lattice embossing folder.l I quite like it (I think), made me not step but jump out of my comfort zone of orderliness and into scraggy and distressed. (I wonder if they call is deistressed because that is what the artist is becoming the whole while! Well thats it for me today, so please let me know what you think, bye for now

Sweet Summer again

Sweet Summer, Hi again, As I mentioned yesterday I have another share for you today using the set Sweet Summer. It is the type of set that I think I will be using a lot of. I just seem to be drawn to it. Today's card is a CASE from Lee Conrey, We dont have all the things they do in the US with Stampin' Up! so we sort of improvise, adapt and overcome. Once again I have pulled out the Very Vanilla Cardstock as my base. I stamped the little branches all over the base and also stmped them on a smalled piece of cardstock which I matted onto Pear Pizzaz. The flowers I painted with, you guessed it my trusty Aqua Painter using Baja Brezze. You will notice a little 'pinked' trim below the sentiment and that too is another little sneak peak from the mini. Tomorrow I hope you will be ready for another share, this time it will be those adorable little owls from yet another of the Sale-a-bration sets Punch Bunch! Till then, bye for now

School Holidays!

Sorry I have been missing in action the last few days. A combination of really not being able to do much at all becasuse I have been ill with the Lurgy, and having one of my grand daughters here for a few days is not conducive to blog writing............or creating for that matter. The house is quiet again now that said grandchild had gone home.

   I love the way that kids are so creative and uninhibited when it comes to their creativity. They dont think like we do (is that good??) and are so much more adventurous in what they do. September is a very busy month for us as far as birthdays go. This month so far we have had, mine, my husband, our son and a very good friend not to mention the nieces and nephews that arent even in the same state as us!

Last week being my husband's birthday, the two girls made their grand dad a  card each, and also a get well card from each of them for me too. Their cards are of course beautiful and will be placed away now, so that in years to come they will get them back and be able took upon them and the memories of that day will no doubt have a good chuckle. The insert on one of the cards reads

"Happy Birthday!
Thank you for everything and all the advice you have given me....
Even if its not the best to use,
P.S. You look like you're only 22!! xoxoxoxo"
Now this child will go far!!!

Seriously though, I know we all have bits and pieces that we have made or started to make and they have not turned out the way we had envisaged, so we have put them asisde for "another day". Well all my bits like that I put in a container and when the kids arrive we sit and do something together with all the "another day" goodies. So we sat and potched and played. I thought this is the perfect time to use only what is on the table or within reach.

No cheating and getting out of the chair, use only what is within immediate reach. I was very disciplined which surprised me, and I proceeded to dig around in the box of goodies for unfinsihed projects, scraps of ribbon, 1/2 pearls, brads, 1/2 rhinestones (I know that I didnt leave them out last time I used them!) dazzling diamonds, diecuts that I had made to either try out a new die or they didnt fit in whatever I was making at the time.Even dimensionals I cut up the edges to use. These are just three of those that were made up from scraps, left overs.

There are another four cards and I will post them straight after this, as I (still) have dreadful times trying to get the pics where I want them!